Wine House harvesting wins in town league hockey

Team ice skating? WTF?

Teams are really shaping up as the town league hockey season progresses and, as of right now, four teams look strong enough to take the title.
One such team is the Wine House. They’ve progressed significantly over the past couple of weeks with a series of wins. Last Thursday they continued on their roll, handing the Lightning a 4-1 loss to move into second place in the standings behind, you guessed it, the Brick Oven, which is currently 6-0 in league play.
The game Thursday night had a lot riding on it. Not only were the two teams tied in the standings, but both teams also have Wolfpack goalies in net. Current Wolfpack goalie Montana Wiggins stands between the pipes for the Lightning, while former Wolfpack goalie Zach Van Dyke puts on the pads for the Wine House.
The Wine House opened it up early in the game with Tim Haren leading the charge. Three minutes into the game Haren took a pass in the neutral zone and proceeded to skate through three Lightning players and score.
Thirty seconds later, Lightning player Issac Long looked to do the same. After winning the draw in front of the Lightning net, Long skated the length of the ice to open up a one-on-one with VanDyke. Van Dyke shut off the first option and when Long looked to skate by and flip it in, VanDyke stacked the pads to deny the shot.
The Wine House held on to their one-goal lead with a perfect penalty kill and then struck once they were back to full strength. Again, Haren did most of the damage to draw all kinds of attention before sliding the puck to a wide-open Nathanial Akell, who punched it by Wiggins to put the House up 2-0.
The Lightning ramped up their effort as the first period continued, with Jay Prentiss breaking up several Wine House attacks and the Lightning turning the puck back up ice to attack.
The Lightning had another powerplay opportunity late in the first period but struggled to capitalize again, leaving them down two goals going into the second period.
The game turned a little chippy during the second period with players actually squaring off at one point to throw down, but nothing came of the altercation and the teams continued to push each other on and off the ice.
Wiggins found his focus in the second period to come up with a couple of big saves and hold the Lightning team well within striking distance.
Long had another clear look at net, skating free out of the neutral zone but hustle (read desperate trip) by Fred Sproat broke up the play before Long could get the shot off.
The Lightning finally broke the seal five minutes into the second period as Mike Fabbre provided some skating and shooting prowess threading his way through the Wine House defense like they were practice cones to beat VanDyke with a shot off the inside of the far post.
The goal lit up the Lightning for the remainder of the second period as they continued to pressure the Wine House and fire shots. Even their powerplay was looking more legit and as they took the ice for the third period, they were poised to mount a comeback and possibly pull off the win.
But the Wine House had other plans and let it be known 10 seconds into the third period who was truly in control of the ice that evening.
After winning the opening face-off, they attacked the Lightning net with extreme prejudice. Sticks were swinging, the puck was bouncing and eventually Drew Holbrook was scoring as he connected with the puck off an assist from Matt Cahir.
The Wine House added an insurance goal midway through the third as Travis Phillips found a seam through the Lightning defense to score and seal the 4-1 Wine House win.
As I mentioned before, there are at least four teams with a legitimate shot at the 2014 title, with the regular season wrapping up on Friday, February 21. If there’s ever a time to check out town league hockey, it’s right now. Especially since the team ice skating competition is over in the Olympics. What a show…down?